Revell '49 Merc.

This has been a fun yet frustrating build. Warning, picture heavy post.

The pictures got out of sink during the up load, sorry guys. I am sure you can figure out what's going on.














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I like the patterning technique, also, you cast your own wheels? I wish I had that dedication and the equipment. I struggle to find anything with 'BFGoodrich' printed on the side. Great job.

Thanks man.

I took up casting for one reason. Kit bashing being such a big part of this hobby, and so many awesome parts available within some really collectable and expensive kits I decided to learning how cast. This would allow me to use any part from any kit when ever the need arose without the inhereint side effect of ruining a kit.
If you ever decide to get into it Smooth-On makes some of the most reliable stuff around. They have a distributor in the UK. Feel free to ask me anything, I will share what ever I have learned.

Pretty wild!

Looking good. The wheels look perfect.

Nice work Curt !

Thanks guys.

WOW!  Cool work.  Glad you decided to "dude up" the interior too.  Casting looks great!  If there atre flaws on wheels/tires, is it harder to fill/smooth pin holes and larger ones?

Nice !!
Looking good !!
There was a lot of criticism when this kit first came out. Purists didn't like the roof line. My complaint was that Revel chopped it and didn't leave it for us modelers to do. Kinda belittled the effort of us that did our own chop. My rebuttal was that I chopped it even more !
I like the idea of using lace to pattern the seats.
Nice work on the castings.

I appreciate the interest guys, thanks.


harron, thanks dude, totally agree on the pin holes. I use a pressure pot and cast at 65psi for casting, although this does help, it does not completely remove all bubbles.


Clay, thanks for complements. All good points. But people will always find issues to gripe about. Who ever did the master for this kit did an amazing job on the chop. That roof line is not easy to chop and get right, so many compound curves and lines going on.
I would enjoy seeing your chop and the WIP.

Hi curt,

Looking great so far, love the cat wheels too, maybe one day if you feel like it you could do a tutorial on how to do the casting...

Andy...

Made some more progress today. First crack at laying down .4mm mask for pin stripping. Man is this stuff narrow. Not sure how it is going to turn out. A good exercise in how to use it none the less. How ever this turns out is how it will stay.




Put some Gulf Blue down, it seems to be reacting to the Spaz Stix clear I used to seal the masking. I am not stripping it.
Next step, more masking then lay down some lace and orange.

Curt. I don;t want to hijack your thread, so I'll start a thread in the tutorials section, "Rechopping the Revell Merc"
I had trouble with pinholes when I was playing with resin casting. I had a commercial caster tell me that the main problem was humidity. He said he keeps his casting room at 0% humidity. ( I couldn't get that low with my simple dehumidifier, but I still had problems).

No worries Clay I enjoy the conversation, are you talking about our friend George? Yes humidity plays a huge roll in casting and making molds.

Plastic Freak wrote:No worries Clay I enjoy the conversation, are you talking about our friend George? Yes humidity plays a huge roll in casting and making molds.  

'Twas Ed Fluck - Drag City Casting

Ah.
I want to get a hygrometer (had to look that one up) for my bench area, a worth while investment for casting and painting.

Are you trying to control the relative humidity or specific humidity?

Absolute (specific) humidity.

Relative humidity would have to be calculated. So I am questing absolute is the factor that plays real havoc on paint and casting, the actual amount of moisture in the air.

I'm still learning all the in's and out's of this "simple" process.

http://weatherfaqs.org.uk/node/29

Psychrometry is what we restoration guys live by, here is an excerpt from our training manual.

Psychrometry is the study of the relationship between air and water vapor. This study can help restorers to analyze conditions during drying.
A Psychrometric Chart shows the relationship between air volume, temperature and relative humidity. It helps you to determine a variety of specific humidity measurements.
Relative Humidity in the amount of moisture in air expressed as a percentage of the saturation point of the air. It is 'relative' to the temperature of the air.
Specific humidity is a measure of the amount of water in the air by volume. The most common measurements used in water restoration are vapor pressure, dew point and grains per pound.
Need for Psychrometry
The restorer's job involves speeding up drying and documenting the process. Psychrometry is important in both of these as it is the study of the relationship between air and water vapor allowing you to analyze and record air conditions during drying.
Relative Humidity and Specific Humidity
Specific humidity tells you how much moisture is in the air by volume. The most common units of measure for specific humidity are dew point, grains per pound and vapor pressure. These units of measure work similar to the way measurements like ounces or milliliters work for liquid, specifically how much water is in the air. Just as putting 8 ounces of water in a bottle would still be 8 ounces of water regardless of the temperature of that water, a specific humidity of 54F dew point is still 54F dew point regardless of the temperature of the air. Specific humidity can be helpful in providing information such as whether a dehumidifier is removing moisture for instance.
Relative humidity changes with temperature as it is a percentage of the saturation point of the air. (Think 1/2 a bottle of water being 50% relative humidity.) As the air warms, the saturation point of the air increases and the relative humidity drops. (8 ounces of water is 50% of the capacity of a 16 ounce bottle of water, but only fills a 32 ounce container to 25% of capacity.)
Using a Psychrometric Chart
Using a psychometric chart you can convert air temperature and relative humidity to specific humidity. To use a psychrometric chart take a temperature and relative humidity reading of the air. Find the air temperature at the bottom of the psychrometric chart. Follow a straight line up the chart to the relative humidity line sweeping across from the left. Where the temperature and the rh intersect go straight across to the right hand side of the chart and you will see the specific humidity of the air in the units of grains per pound, dew point and vapor pressure.

Interesting.

I sold A/C and Refrigeration systems for 20 years, that's interesting Mitch.

Yeah it can be fun to dry a challenging loss.

Its all about putting energy into the wet materials and taking away energy in the surroundings to create a vapor pressure differential to drive the water into the air and take it out with the dehumidifiers.

It's actually a bit like liquid and suction lines in a refrigeration system, turning gas back into a liquid. All these systems have driers in them for obvious reasons.

I know a bit about cars and refrigeration, but feck all about anything else! LOL

This build has taken a few steps back. Upon my returned the bench and this build I found that the gulf blue was lifting in a number of spots. I must have contaminated the black surface somehow during the masking stage. No biggie, I wasn't very pleased with the layout anyway.
So a few days soaking in Easy-Off and some scrubbing/soaking cycles it has been stripped and the black layed up for the pin stripping.
I also started casting spinners for the wheels. Only 3 done for now, raw out f the mold.
The part is so small I can only cast with resin left over from other castings. It just too small of an amount to mix up without wasting material.